


The Element Called Family

by ajfessler



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Family of Choice, SHIELD sucks, Son of Mobster Clint Barton, Tony Stark to the rescue?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7305613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajfessler/pseuds/ajfessler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark doesn't know what to do with his life now that he has to make that choice again. Clint Barton was completely sure that he was done staring at the white, white walls of his helicarrier quarters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Element Called Family

**Author's Note:**

> This is something that I found within my hard drive and brushed up to put out in the world. There will be one, maybe two more chapters and doesn't contain my OTP. It actually features Tony with Pepper, and Clint with Laura, mindblowingly enough. 
> 
> ~*~ = POV change, if it's not obvious.

Tony Stark had known Clint forever. They had been diaper buddies once upon a time. He hadn’t always known him as Clint Barton, though. That name change had come sometime after they had turned ten. Tony had known Clint as Clifton Francis Barzetti, second son of a prominent mafia don. Their mother’s had been cousins. 

It had come as a shock to get the briefing pack from Coulson and see the aged but still familiar face of his childhood playmate. Pepper, bless her perceptive heart, had taken one look at the possible team, caught sight of Clint’s face, and recognized the face from the rare photo’s that Tony couldn’t bear to part with and didn’t dare display and allowed herself to be chased off. He heard them leaving, caught a brief note of friendly small talk before he allowed himself to look at Clint’s file. The bold red compromised status made his chest ache around the reactor. 

After the battle was done and over after the cleanup was planned and implemented, after Loki had been sent back to where he came from Tony found himself standing in front of one of the expanses of glass windows that were everywhere in the tower. Staring down at the busy New York street. He wasn’t entirely sure how he had gotten to that point. Most of his memories of the past few weeks were blurry and disjointed. A desperate effort to keep moving forward because he wasn’t supposed to be there, alive. When it had come down to it, the choice had been easy. Fly the nuke into the portal, save the city. His life was negligible in the grand scheme of probabilities. 

Yet somehow he hadn’t died, he had survived. And what a trend that was becoming. Mind blowing in epic proportions. He’d had Jarvis run the numbers, and it still didn’t make sense. The probabilities still came out the same. Fly the nuke into the portal, have it closed behind him, save the city, die a hero. That was exactly how it should have worked out, all he’d needed to do was sign on the dotted line and be done with it. Excepted it hadn’t. Somehow he had gotten sucked back through the portal just as it closed. And somehow the team had been just close enough to ensure that he didn’t end up a red and gold pancake in the street. And somehow they had jump-started the arc reactor. None of it should have been possible. But there he was left wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now. 

~*~

It had been four weeks since the Battle of New York, and Clint was done. Done with the tests, done with the slant-eyed looks, done with the whispers and silence. So when the helicarrier put in for refuel and shore leave for her crew he snuck off. If the cards came in his favor, which they never really did, he would be able to get off the ship and into the city where he could hide until Fury had to take the ship back out. It was too big to sit in the Mayport docks for more than a few days without drawing suspicion. Florida wasn’t the best place for him to disappear but he’d long ago realized that his father's connections had far reaching fingers. As long as he didn’t present himself as a threat to the Commission, they would shelter him when he asked. 

Slipping out of his room, the horrific electric white walls had burned out his retinas within the first few hours of habitation, and into the soothing haze, gray passageways without anyone noticing or walking through went smoothly. He allowed a minuscule tendril of hope to ease through his mind as he slowly worked his way out of the detention level and out into general populace.

His weapons and armor would be locked up under the ever watchful eye of the armorer. The Naval regulation, high-security shipboard locking system would take too long to circumvent even if he had the proper tools to attempt it and that was only if there wasn’t an armorer present which was unlikely. Sparing a moment’s thought to it all, he immediately wrote it off as lost. He’d made his own bows, arrows and quivers for long enough before SHIELD had gotten their hands on him. It wouldn’t be a tremendous hardship to produce more. 

The onboard mid-level gym offered him a change of clothes. Jeans, tee shirt, and a hoodie would allow him to blend in well enough. He left the medical scrubs in exchange and began working on slipping off the ship. Security had been tightened since the last time he had been on and off while the helicarrier was put into port like an ordinary ship so the experience was significantly more nerve wrecking and stressful than any previous time. 

Somehow he managed to get down to the pier without the alarming being sounded. Blending into the shadows and slipping around standard guards was child’s play after that. Hitchhiking a ride into Jacksonville had been difficult, service members being particularly wary of strangers especially strangers who looked half dead and crazy. He figured the lovely couple who had picked him up were actually parents of a first generation service member rather than a traditional military family themselves since they didn’t ask any of the usual questions. No what brings you to Florida, how long have you been here. But that could also be attributed to his half dead appearance. He sat in the back, slouched down and stared out the window. Tried to keep his movements as unthreatening as possible. Offered his skills at manual labor to compensate for the ride and turned down the offer of dinner. His stomach wouldn’t allow food yet, and Clint didn’t feel like vomiting.

Once free of his Good Samaritans he walked around until he was entirely sure he wasn’t being followed and was out of the residential neighborhood. That accomplished he found someone who would allow him to borrow their phone and made just one call.

The number hadn't changed in two decades which never failed to impress him. The perky female voice on the other side of the line was new, and he could only pray that his code name and passphrase were known well enough that he wasn’t about to have the enforcers sent out on himself. The voice had hesitated for half a second before an older male said

“So the prodigal son returns. Location?” With a sigh of relief, he gave his position as best he could and was told pickup would take place at the nearest McDonald's. Giving the cell phone back with profuse thanks to its owner he looked around and sure enough, a few miles down the road there were the ever familiar golden arches. 

Walking in bathed him in a wash of cold air perfumed with dirty fry oil and mystery meat. His Uncle Donny was waiting for him in plain view. Sitting on the table in front of the man was a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Both of which Clint was sure hid less than legal items.

It wasn’t quite time for the dinner rush so while it was noisy, it wasn’t overly busy. Settling into the seat with a sigh he waited. Uncle Donny had an unpredictable temper and a cruel sense of humor. Family was family, though, so he felt he could afford to wait on his Uncle’s good mood. 

Sharp gray-blue eyes, the same ones he saw in the mirror when he bothered to look, took one look at him, and the cup of coffee was pushed across the table. Clint picked it up and held it allowing the hot liquid to warm his fingers. Not drinking it, though, he trusted his family not to kill him, he would never trust them not to drug him and interrogate him. The approving nod he received for his caution warmed his insides almost as much as the coffee was warming his fingers. Uncle Donny eyed him contemptuously before saying  
“Seems like they haven’t let you get soft then.” A harshly broken laugh was forced out of him at that before he said

“No, the aliens didn’t either.” Uncle Donny nodded at him and said

“Heard about that mess. How’d you get from there to here?” Grimacing he wrapped an arm around his middle without relinquishing his hold on the coffee cup before he looked out the window at traffic going to and fro. Sighing he said quietly

“I was compromised.” That earned him a snort from Uncle Donny before the man said

“Would have had to of been some voodoo hoodoo to compromise you. Too stupid to know when to back out.” And there was Uncle Donny’s mean humor. It was strangely reassuring to hear someone who had known him all his life say that under normal circumstances there wasn't anything that could sway his loyalties. Too bad three-quarters of SHIELD didn’t feel the same. The rest had been subtly trying to recruit him into something that he didn’t want to have any part in. 

A halfhearted glare later he had Uncle Donny laughing freely, and the knot inside his chest relaxed enough to let him breathe easy. His family still believed in him, and wouldn’t turn him away. That more than anything reassured him he wasn’t crazy, yet.

Forty-five minutes, two trunk rides and a change of clothes later they pulled up to the summer house and the feeling of being hunted faded away as the wrought iron gates closed. He wouldn't stay long, someone was bound to look for him. Here though he could get a shower, an unaccompanied shower with as much hot water as he could want and actual soap. 

In borrowed clothes, he meandered downstairs to the kitchen where his cousin Agatha was working on what appeared to be lunch. He sat down at the work table in the middle of the room and ran his fingers over the well-worn, familiar grooves of the table only to jump a few moments later when a cup of coffee and a ham sandwich was placed in front of him. There in the kitchen of his childhood he was as safe as he could be and allowed himself to take a sip of the coffee only to nearly groan out loud at the smooth bitter flavor. 

Throwing a smirk at Agatha he remarked  
“Uncle Donny always did have the best taste.” She laughed at him before going back to ignoring him outright. It was ok, he wasn’t particularly welcome since he had turned his back on everything his family worked for to run away and join the circus. Cliché as it was, he wouldn’t go back and do anything different. 

Looking up a few moments later as Uncle Donny walked in and barked

“I assumed you would be going back to New York. Your plane leaves in an hour, best finish up. Jill, my personal assistant, will provide you with everything you’ll need to get from here to there. Someone will be waiting for you when you land.” Clint nodded and said

“Thanks, Uncle Donny.” The man nodded gruffly, pulled him into a hard, rough hug and promptly vanished. For such a round man Clint mused his Uncle Donny could disappear with the best of them. Shaking his head in bemusement, he drained the last of the coffee, grabbed the sandwich and walked off to find Jill.

Jill turned out to be a twenty-something socialite of the world underbelly who was aspiring to marry into the family upper ranks. Clint was well aware of the image he presented in his jeans borrowed from someone who had at least six inches in their waist and two in height on him, a button down that only fit because he left the top button undone and rolled the sleeves, and work boots that had seen quite a few good, hard days of work before they had been retired to a pile somewhere for emergencies such as he had found himself in. Jill, who took one look at him in the getup and promptly turned up her nose and dismissed him as unworthy of her time. 

Smiling politely he took the Manila folder from her and inspected the id and papers. He was sure she would find out who he actually was later and kick herself for snubbing him. Estranged from his family or not he was still his father’s heir. 

The id’s looked solid enough to fly within the confines of the country. He was once again Clifton Barzetti though, which he pulled a face about but didn’t seek out anyone to complain to about it. The id was created from a legitimate identity, one that would hold up to a hell of a lot more scrutiny than anything that could be made up in a half an hour. It would serve him well enough to get home. Whatever that meant to him now, he didn’t even know if his apartment building was still standing.

The airport was uneventful. The private jet a pleasant shock. The flight smooth and uneventful. The landing was yawn inducing after learning to deal with the adrenaline of jumping off collapsing buildings without knowing what was in store for a landing. He got a few odd looks when he walked out of the private terminal towards baggage claim where he would be able to slip out into the large city of New York.

It wasn't until he was moving towards the doors that he remembered he would be collected. It wasn’t until there was a hand on his elbow directing him out of the glass doors and towards a particularly stunning Audi that he thought to wonder about it. As far as Clint knew, he didn’t have any family actually living in New York proper. There were a few in outlying high-class neighborhoods but none that he could think of off the top of his head that Uncle Donny would call to take him in. 

The man beside him presented himself as content with life and well versed in corralling and herding tricky and wily charges. From his demeanor and suit, Clint couldn't tell if the man was an enforcer or just a chauffeur or both. He had a great Aunt, who had an enforcer who had become her servant that she had eventually married. Last Clint heard Aunt Agatha was living out her last years in high style with a husband only a quarter of her age. Whoever the man was, he managed to get Clint out of the airport into the car and away from the crowds with poise and grace that was a rarity in the Barzetti hired help. 

The city was both a relief and hard to take in. There was plenty of construction still going on but on the whole, it looked like most everything was put back together. He stared unseeingly after a while and just let the man, who had introduced himself as Happy, drive him where ever he wanted.

Blinking awake when the light changed to dark Clint wondered where they were now. He was obviously in an underground parking garage, one that was filled to capacity with beautiful, fast, expensive cars. Happy maneuvered the car smoothly into the last open slot before slipping out of the car. The man had Clint’s door open before Clint had even managed to get the seatbelt off. Giving a disgruntled look to the man when he was met with a knowing smirk. Happy just shrugged at him and said

“Boss doesn’t wear a seat belt when he manages to let me drive for just that reason. He hates being waited on so it’s a habit to go out of my way to try and do it.” Conceding to the amusement of the situation with a small smile Clint tried to stretch out the kinks in his shoulders from falling asleep in the small car. Happy took off towards the far end of the garage where Clint spied an elevator of all things.  
Happy had the door open for him by the time he arrived and didn’t say a single word as Clint got on. The doors closed smoothly behind him, and the carriage started moving immediately afterward. The doors opened on a floor that had several doors off it and gave off the appearance of being either a low priced hotel or a high-class apartment building. Clint started to follow, but Happy’s hand stopped him before the man said

“Nope, you get to go all the way to the top. Boss man said so.” Clint sighed and nodded allowing himself to be pushed back into the elevator. Once more the doors closed and it started moving immediately. The next time the doors opened, it was into a penthouse he actually recognized.


End file.
